SAINT LOUIS—On Sunday March 15th, 2015 Hands Up United will host a graduation ceremony for the Ferguson youth educated in their inaugural Roy Clay Sr Web Development and Entrepreneurship class, the first of its kind in Saint Louis. This Tech Impact Program, a six-week intensive series of workshops, taught selected St. Louis youth HTML, CSS, WordPress, PHP, JavaScript, and consulting skills with the goal of strengthening local, black-owned businesses, as well as nonprofits and other social movements in the area.

Graduating students will showcase their web development work for Ferguson Burger Bar, Mama Cat’s Potbangerz, and the Don’t Shoot Coalition during their graduation ceremony taking place at LockerDome, 1221 Washington Avenue in downtown Saint Louis. The graduation will take place from 6:00 - 8:00 PM and is free to the public.

The Roy Clay Sr Web Development and Entrepreneurship class was created by Ferguson youth activists who, back in October of 2014, wanted to organize themselves to invest their dollars in local small businesses. Upon searching for local black-owned businesses, they discovered that the establishments they wanted to support didn’t have any web presence. At the youth’s request, Hands Up United built a program that would teach these young people how to code so that they can go out into the community to build up websites and networks for black-owned businesses and organizations.

Sunday’s graduation represents the culmination of Hands Up United’s pilot program, and this initiative is a first step to harnessing technology to enhance the movement for equity, fairness and freedom in Saint Louis. The community is encouraged to attend.

ABOUT THE TECH IMPACT INITIATIVE

The revolution will be digitized. Computer programming and web development are 21st century skills that can be used to activate ideas, grow small businesses and build grass-roots movements. Hands Up United will lead technical training workshops for the Ferguson youth as a way to counteract cyber warfare, close the digital divide and address the issues of economic equality.

ABOUT HANDS UP UNITED

Hands Up United is a collective of politically engaged minds building towards the liberation of oppressed Black, Brown and Poor people through education, art, civil disobedience, advocacy, and agriculture.

HandsUpUnitedis a collective of politically engaged minds building towards the liberation of oppressed Black, Brown and poor people through education, art, civil disobedience, advocacy and agriculture.